Conservative news nonprofits: Claiming legitimacy without transparency

Abstract

This study examines the field of conservative news nonprofits, using discourse analysis to explore their missions and other public statements. We find that many of these organizations draw on the legitimacy of mainstream journalism outlets while critiquing them, at once associating with and dissociating from them. This enables them to justify their engagement in political activism even as they obscure their ideological orientations and funding sources, behaviors that challenge the normative boundaries of mainstream commercial journalism in the U.S. This work shows how self-described outsiders to a field build and maintain boundaries to legitimate their own work in relation to that field.